A New Dawn For Healthcare Architecture
Maria Lorena Lehman
Featured in Building Tomorrow Magazine

I am pleased to inform you that a commentary which I wrote, entitled A New Dawn for Healthcare Architecture, was recently published in the fall edition of Building Tomorrow magazine.

You can access the full feature article by clicking on the following link:

A New Dawn for Healthcare Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

In essence, this published piece focuses on the power of healthcare architecture and innovation, and how they can work together with sensory design to improve healing time and quality for patients, which is much needed today.

Here is an introductory excerpt:

“Healthcare architecture and innovative design plays a critical role when it comes to the quality of treatment and care for patients and the medical teams who support them. Maximized to its full potential, architecture has the ability to ease painful suffering, guide patients toward faster and better quality healing, and solve healthcare challenges which often detrimentally affect patients….”

— Maria Lorena Lehman, Founder Sensing Architecture
Building Tomorrow Magazine

Again, if you would like to read more of the article as it was published in Building Tomorrow, please click on the following link which will take you directly to the online version of the full article.

A New Dawn for Healthcare Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

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THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF NATURE

Healing environments often integrate nature to help de-stress patients. Nature can be a beautiful distraction or have physiological benefits. Either way, nature is important because it has been proven to reduce pain and subsequent stress. In the book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, patients with views of trees heal more quickly and with less pain than those with views of blank walls. So, how can architecture best incorporate nature to reap all of its healing benefits for healthy environments?

BRINGING THE QUALITIES OF NATURE INDOORS

By incorporating technology, we can extract features from nature in a more conscious manner. As designers bring architecture together with nature, they can align environments with human natural biorhythms. For example, lighting properties could more closely resemble those found in natural sunlight. For better understanding, I like to think about healing gardens that are full of life and appeal to all of the human senses. Color, sound, smell, touch and sometimes even taste are embedded into garden designs. Healing gardens are places where people can find strength, both physically and mentally.

Sometimes certain healing garden characteristics can be found within healing architectural spaces. Water features, circulation pathways or social gathering areas are elements that each may have in common. From healing gardens we learn that by reaching out to the senses, design can greatly impact human well-being. The key is to appeal to human senses.

GREEN architectural features are also helping to make architectural environments more pleasant and comfortable. Interest is in spending less energy while maintaining optimal comfort conditions. In the book Ten Shades of Green, the author describes the Gotz Headquarters by stating that “every element of the building contributes to climate control”. In addition, the atrium pond and plants contribute to the indoor air quality of the building as well.

RELIEVE STRESS WITH HEALING SPACES

Unfortunately, many hospital environments are still overfilled with technology and interior design that is clunky, noisy and visually too sterile and intimidating. Patient experience in such places dampens the senses and makes patients heal in spite of their surroundings. Currently; however, there is an ongoing push to make such environments more humane, comforting and natural. Attention to color or organic textures, for example, are proving to significantly impact occupant or patient mood.

In essence, designers should not forget the healing power of nature when designing healthcare space. Again, bring forth some of what makes healing gardens so successful – such design characteristics are sure to relax, comfort and help to heal.

What if interactive architecture could do more than just react to its occupants? What if architecture was based on rules that could promote designated functions? In this light, architecture would be motivational and goal-oriented. Hospitals; for instance, would actually help patients to heal — instead of being cold and sterile, like so many hospitals we find today. 

Adaptable architecture could help occupants have better experiences within buildings. For instance, within hospitals a rule-based architecture could help patients to do the following:

• understand their treatment
• reduce stress
• decrease pain
• engage in healing behavior

Hospital rooms could tailor their interactions toward certain illnesses, recovery and patient types. In addition, adaptive architecture could help the medical staff do a better job, making less medical errors. Of course, patient control and choice is important — and adaptive architecture should make provisions for both as it promotes functions within.